


Babysitting

by Duckgomery



Series: This Old House [8]
Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: I am not projecting my own terrible writing habits on Pitch, M/M, No-one messes with Daddy's baby, One-Sided Relationship, also, and by Daddy's baby I of course mean Pitch's car, drunken ramblings on the part of two boys, mention of drugging, not at all, pitch totally ships them, that man loves his car
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-16
Updated: 2013-03-16
Packaged: 2017-12-05 11:39:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/722862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duckgomery/pseuds/Duckgomery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He'd planned for a nice, quiet night to himself.</p><p>That phone of his, ringing from the other-side of the desk, as other plans in mind.</p><p>Pitch really needs to remember to turn that infernal piece of technology off.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Babysitting

**Author's Note:**

> Next part, WOOOOOOOOO!!!  
> Don't want to be the bringer of bad news, but we've crossed the halfway point.  
> My ship does not show, not at all.

                All was silent, all was quiet. Pitch had the night to himself and boy was he going to take advantage of it. Body hunched over the laptop perched on the edge of his rickety desk, he pounded out words and ideas that had been plaguing him for the past few days but hadn’t the time to record properly.

                Tonight was his night though.

                Tonight he was going to work some more on his latest book, it had been awhile since the previous one and his ‘adoring’ fans were beginning to tire of the wait.

                So write he did, going ahead and skipping dinner in favour of ploughing through his work.

                By the end of the twelfth chapter, he allowed himself a momentary respite, leaning back to let his now aching back crack into its proper position.

                Fingers poised above the keys, he was about to perform the few hesitant strokes necessary to build momentum to continue his onslaught on the once blank document, when his phone rang.

                In true fashion, Pitch ignored it.

                His hands continued to hover.

                The phone continued to ring.

                Pitch frowned at how his hands were betraying him.

                He picked up the phone, took a look at the caller ID and contemplated answering or not.

                It can never be anything good when Jack was involved.

                Pitch looked between the flickering cursor on the document, then back to the phone ringing in his hand.

                He repeated this motion a few more times before resigning himself to dealing with whatever trouble Jack needed bailing out of this time.

                It was most likely that was the current cause.

                It had never been anything else.

                “What do you want, Jackson, I’m trying to work if you must know.” Pitch kicks his feet up on his desk, reclining back on his chair. No one had to know.

                The voice on the other end wasn’t Jack.

                “Sorry, Mister Black, it’s Hiccup,” the boy on the other end stuttered through the phone as best he could. He was competing with the loud cacophony that was most likely some variation of nightlife.

                “So, Mister Haddock, what has Jack done?” Pitch knows the boys well enough to see what’s going on. Jack has dragged Hiccup into one mess or another and now the poor boy is expected to pull the both of them out of it.

                Pitch often wonders why Hiccup sticks around.

                “It’s not what he’s done, but we need a lift, please can you pick us up?” He sounded desperate.

                Jack’s drunken giggling could be heard over the loud music in the background, along with an accompanying rough voice.

                “I guess, not like I was doing anything. Now, where are you boys at?”

 

                Pulling up outside the bar, Pitch pondered why he’d brought his car for this errand.

                Stalking into the bar, all thoughts of his precious baby were pushed out of his head as he saw his charges for the night.

                Jack was barely standing, head lolling on Hiccups shoulder, as the other boy, as scrawny as he was, was balanced awkwardly trying to hold to dead weight up.

                That wasn’t what raised Pitch’s hackles though.

                It was the guy, at least a head taller than Hiccup, who seemed to be trying his best to pull Jack out of the brunette’s grip.

                In true Hiccup fashion, he seemed to be fighting back with words, an approach that Pitch favoured himself, but it seemed to be having the adverse effect from what the smaller boy was hoping for.

                “Just pass him over, your friend was pretty keen with me earlier.” Hands reached out at Jack, who simply laughed into Hiccups neck, oblivious to what was happening around him.

                “Sorry, we’re leaving, our ride’s going to be here in a minute, so I suggest that maybe you leave.”

                “I’m sorry, what I’m seeing is that you’re trying to keep that slut of a friend for yourself. Pass him over and I’ll let you walk out here without a mark on you. How does that sound?”

                “There you two are, let’s get you two back.” Pitch swoops in before the antagonistic boy can attempt anything more.

                “So, this was who you were waiting for. Have fun with your twinks, gramps.” He snorted before blending back in with the crowd.

                Taking the zoned out Jack from a trembling Hiccup, Pitch lead the two out of the bar and over to his car.

                He hoped that the boys had enough sense of self-preservation to not throw up in his car.

                “Oh god, I’m so sorry, Mister Black. My Dad will kill me, please don’t tell him. Is he going to be alright, Mister Black? I think that creep put something in his drink, he’s been acting weird and, oh god, this was a bad idea. Why did I let him talk me into this? Oh god, Dad’s going to kill me.”

                The drive back was nothing but Hiccup’s dread filled, bumbling monologue. Both boys are stuck in the back, Jack lying across the back seat, head pillowed on Hiccup’s lap.

                He seems to be awake, blearily so, but not really responding.

                Pulling into the garage, Jack seems to stir, skin turning a sickly shade.

                “Shit,” Pitch mutters none too quietly, pulling the back door open, and almost throwing Jack over his shoulder to get him out of his car.

                Running through the lower floor, he gets the intoxicated boy to the bathroom just in time.

                Retching and a sickly, acidic scent fill the cold, tiled room, but Pitch can’t bring himself to leave the boy alone in such a state. He sinks down beside Jack, hands awkwardly moving in haphazard circles over the boy’s bony back in a gesture that he hoped offered comfort.

                It had been too long since he had to deal with a sick child.

                Tooth finds them not too long after, though Jack had shifted position to lean more on Pitch rather than fall into the toilet bowl in his current state of wake.

                Her eyes, though bleary from being woken at an hour too early, are wide with concern.

                “How’s Hiccup?” Thinking that the best way to break the silence was to enquire about the other boy he’d abandoned in his haste to save his upholstery.

                Jack groaned, resting his forehead on the cool, porcelain rim.

               “He’s fine, once I got him settled down, and convinced him that his Dad wasn’t going to banish him, I made up the pull out couch and he’s asleep know. He’s worried though. What happened? Wait, I’ll be right back.” She flits out of the room, back moments later with a bottle of water, which she brings to Jack.

               “Come on, drink up.”

               He groans more, before clumsily accepting the flimsy, plastic container, taking a cautious sip, testing the waters so to speak.

               “From what I gathered, Jack dragged Hiccup out, they had a few to drink, Jack got his drink spiked, and Hiccup called me to bail them out-“

               A fresh wave of retching fills the room, cutting off any further explanation.

               “Shhh just let it all out, Jack.” Tooth flies in, fingers coming through sweat drenched tufts of hair.

               “I always-“

               Cough.

               “-ruin everything.” Jack spits out, head hidden in the bowl.

               His body goes through the motions of throwing up, but fails to bring up anything but the water he’d recently downed, and bile.

               His unsettling, slight frame is rattling with sobs more than anything else, his  face a red and blotchy mess.

               Pitch can’t help but pity the boy.

               “It was just bad luck, you know for next time, honey,” Tooth coos.

               “I just, I wanted to take Hiccup out for some fun, and he’s been down since Astrid broke up with him.”

               More coughing, spluttering, and sobs punctuate the air.

               “I just wanted to get my boy laid, is that so much to ask? If he got laid, then he’d have perked up, back to his old self. Is it so hard to get laid in this day and age? Why?”

               He lurches but brings nothing up, groaning at the ache his body is most likely suffering through.

               “It shouldn’t be so hard for him to find someone, have you seen the guy? He’s adorable, who wouldn’t want to tap that.”

               He drinks some more water from the bottle that Tooth offers.

               “Like, who wouldn’t want any of that, with those freckles, and that smile, oh god, that goofy smile.”

               Jack hunches into himself, sniffling.

               “Who would want plain old me when they could have someone as great, as alive as Hiccup.”

               Pitch looked up and over Jack to meet Tooth’s eyes, shock and recognition visible on both their faces.

               “That’s why I was so stupid and ruined everything, we were supposed to go out, have fun, get Hiccup laid, and what do I do, some random creep hits on me, and even though I knew nothing good could come of it, I lead him on, accept the drinks he buys, ‘cause for once, I felt attractive. That sleaze made me feel desirable and I was selfish and ruined everything.”

               He curls into Pitch’s side, leaving the older man no choice but to wrap his arms around the trembling boy.

               It’s like holding a bird spun from glass.

               “I just fuck up everything, why is he even friends with someone like me.”

               Though he continues to weep, it’s without the intensity from earlier.

               At least he’s stopped throwing up. Whatever had been in his system had long since been purged, thank god for that.

               “Come on, Jack, let’s get you to bed.” With jerking, ungraceful movements, Pitch manages to hoist the boy up, and into his arms, with Tooth following close behind.

               Pitch knows that someone built like him shouldn’t be find it so easy to carry someone like Jack, but that’s an issue for another time, pushed to the back of his mind as more recent developments play about his head.

               Entering the lounge room, Pitch sees that Tooth was right in assuring that Hiccup has asleep on the foldout, the brunette boy having sprawled out, and taking up the majority of the space available.

               Despite, or maybe because of this, Pitch seizes the opportunity, placing a now dozing Jack right next to him, the paler boy curling into the warm body offered to him.

               Tooth lays the previously discarded blanket over the two sleeping boys and hesitates, not quite knowing what to do next.

               Pitch sees that there are already a few water bottles atop the coffee table, along with one of the cleaning buckets to the side of the bed.

               “Can you watch them for a moment, I just need to get my laptop.”

               She looks at him, tired and confused.

               “Well someone needs to stay up and keep an eye on them, may as well do some work while I’m at it.”

               Her shoulders sink in relief.

               “Sure thing, though it’s no problem, I can watch them.”

               As un-gentlemanly as it is, Pitch snorts at this.

               “Tooth, you’re a bleeding heart, you know that? You have work in the morning, you need all the sleep you can get at this stage. Just give me a minute, and then off to bed, alright?”

               Not taking a chance for her to protest further, Pitch heads down the creaking steps to his basement room, grabbing his dozing laptop after forsaking his previous attire for a pair of pyjama pants, an old t-shirt, and his favoured black dressing gown.

               Walking into the room, he shoos Tooth away with a smirk and a few waves of his hand.

               She retaliates by sticking her tongue out, but hesitates once more in the doorway, looking back at the two sleeping boys.

               Having come to some sort of silent conclusion, she leaves the room with a mumbled goodnight, despite the fact that there is no denying it is well and truly morning hours.

               The boys sleeping soundly, Pitch finds his spot from earlier, hands hovering over the keys as he tries to recall what he was hoping to write earlier.

 

               Stomping is what snaps Pitch out of the doze he had unknowingly fallen into. Eyes snapping open, he sees Aster peering into the room.

               Barely supressed snorts shake the Australian’s athletic form before he continues on his way, up and out for his ritual morning run.

               Pitch looks over at the boys, now entwined together, on the couch, and sees what amused Aster so.

               Leaning over, Pitch pulls the blanket off the two boys, causing them to snuggle into each other further for warmth.

               Waking his laptop up once more, he dives in with renewed vigour, only pausing to look up and observe the sight before him, before going back once more, a flurry of rattling keys.


End file.
